Violet Bonham Carter

Who was Violet Bonham Carter?

Helen Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, DBE, known until her marriage as Violet Asquith, was a British politician and diarist. She was the daughter of H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister from 1908–1916, and later became active in Liberal politics herself, being a leading opponent of appeasement, standing for Parliament and being made a life peer. She was also involved in arts and literature. Her illuminating diaries cover her father's premiership before and during the First World War and continue until the 1960s.

She was Winston Churchill's closest female friend, apart from his wife, and her grandchildren include the actress Helena Bonham Carter.